


Sadistic and Masochistic Metaphors in BTVS & ATS –  The dark  sexual underbelly by Shadowkat67

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Character Study, Essays, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Masochism, Meta, Minor Character(s), Other, Sadism, Sexual Content, non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: I intended to make this essay about Guilt. But something else keeps erupting from my brain. Disturbing me. Not letting me alone. Like some hazy dream that you have in the early hours of the morning just before waking. “How can anyone dream or fantasize about a murderer in a sexual way? That is just sick.” Oh lord the dark things that hide within our minds. “How can anyone get off on torture? Bondage? Pain?” So I rolled up my sleeves and did a little research on the internet. The result is this series of issues.In BTVs and Ats the writers wickedly bring our fantasies to life and twist them into nightmares. None of the love relationships on this show are healthy or beautiful. All have some dark negative aspect to them. Some are hidden beneath layers of metaphor, others almost too real. But before we get to Btvs and Ats – a little historical perspective on S&M and what it means psychologically.
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers, Angelus/Darla (BtVS), Angelus/Spike (BtVS), Drusilla/Spike (BtVS), Faith Lehane/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Lilah Morgan/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Riley Finn/Buffy Summers, Spike/Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. S&M Metaphors in BTVS and ATS - Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Written and posted on Buffy Fanboards circa Summer of 2002.
> 
> I'm not sure if it would be considered explicit sexual content or not - mileage varies. It is rated Mature just in case. Attempted rape and rape as a metaphor is analyzed, as are BDSM in literature and in the series. Vampirism as metaphor for sexual practices is also analyzed.
> 
> Various scholarly/psychological texts and literary works are cited.
> 
> Archives relate to the All Things Philosophical Board archives. Go [ HERE ](http://www.atpobtvs.com/existentialscoobies/archives.html) \- but good luck finding it. It's not well indexed.

INTRODUCTION

1\. SEXUAL FANTASIES & FANFIC

We are odd creatures. At times strait-laced and puritanical in our tastes and other times? Somewhat uninhibited, with odd animalistic, even primal desires. Like our forebears. Last night flipping channels – I caught a brief documentary on the History channel about cannibalism in folklore and mythology and how possibly in our collective consciousness we share a common fear or desire for this. The examples they used ranged from fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel & Gretel to legends of ancient tribes who ate people. If that’s true…maybe there’s a common repressed desire for other things as well? Did you know that several of our fairy tales were erotic stories filled with S & M motifs? In the earlier versions of Sleeping Beauty – she was not awakened by true love’s kiss, she was awakened by the birth of a child. The Victorians were the ones who cleaned up the tales for kids, but if you look closely you can see some of the earlier more risqué images remain. The Vampire has always been a sexual metaphor and a violent one at that. As has the werewolf. Both creatures created as metaphors for our more primal, darker urges.

Many people on the boards cannot understand the erotic appeal of Buffy/Spike relationship. That is sick, they say. Is it? Or is it merely human nature – to be intrigued and attracted by something raw and dangerous? In the books _Secret Garden_ and _Forbidden Flowers_ , Nancy Friday, a licensed psychoanalyst, collects and analyses sexual fantasies from her patients and female correspondents.

Here is a quote from her book, _Forbidden Flowers_ , p. 6: 

> “All women have sexual fantasies, though sometimes they won’t admit it, even to themselves. Fantasies are make-believe states used to enhance reality. Her fantasy provides a safe way to explore the erotic possibilities of a situation that might be very threatening or guilt-producing if she acted it out. A fantasy can give a woman an added sense of life and all its possibilities. It is the unexamined corners of the mind that breed neurosis and fear – not the portions of ourselves that we know, recognize and accept.” She states that the most important thing to remember about fantasies is that “they are not facts, deeds, they are NOT acting out.”

When we watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer and fantasize about Angel or Spike or Drusilla – it is just that a fantasy. Spike is not real to us. As Nancy Friday states – “summoning up an image in our imagination does not mean we want to bring it into reality”. The fanfic you’ve read, be it slash, straight, S&M, whatever, is just that – someone’s fantasy. It says very little about the personal and private practices of the writer or their beliefs. Any more than a Stephen King or Thomas Harris novel says anything about the homicidal tendencies of those writers. All they are doing is sharing their opinions and fantasies of the characters with you. You get to make the choice whether or not to read them.

I think many people in our society have troubles with this idea. They believe that if you fantasize about something you will make it real – you will hunt it in your every day life. I can tell you from personal experience this is NOT always the case. Very few of us do.

So why do people online feel this desire to declare almost defensively that they would never want Spike in their house? Last time I checked Spike was a fictional character who was portrayed by a delightful actor on a TV show. Hate to tell you this – but he ain’t coming to your house, he does NOT exist. Now if you said you didn’t want someone like Charles Manson in your house or a lion from the zoo or a senile police dog – I’d agree. Me neither. Why are we condemning people for their fantasies? Or ourselves for our own? Are we afraid of looking at that dark sister or brother self that hides inside? As Faith would say – “What are you afraid of B? Afraid you might like it?”

In BTVs and Ats the writers wickedly bring our fantasies to life and twist them into nightmares. None of the love relationships on this show are healthy or beautiful. All have some dark negative aspect to them. Some are hidden beneath layers of metaphor, others almost too real. But before we get to Btvs and Ats – a little historical perspective on S&M and what it means psychologically.

2\. SADOMASOCHISM – A HISTORICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

In the 19th century, psychologist Krafft-Ebing named a deviant sexual disorder he’d discovered - sadimasochism after Sade and von Sacher-Masoch. He identified it as two distinct but related sexual anomalies in his _Psychopathia Sexualis of 1885_ :

> **Sadism** \- “is 'the experience of sexual pleasurable sensations (including orgasm) produced by acts of cruelty, bodily punishment inflicted on one's own person or when witnessed by others, be they animals or human beings...It may also consist of an innate desire to humiliate, hurt, wound or even destroy others in order thereby to create sexual pleasure in oneself.” Sadism refers to the Marquis de Sade, a novelist of the late 18th century. Sade was pre-Victorian. _120 Days of Sodom_ – his major work was published in 1785. He lived from 1740-1817. His novels _Justine_ and _Juliette_ were as much for social satire and philosophical parable as they were comments on sexual depravity and violence. The Marquis de Sade was institutionalized for daring to write about such a topic and daring to do it in an erotic manner. Ironically, after his death, his wardens made money off of his writings. His name now is used to describe the very things he wrote about. For more information on Marquis de Sade – see the dark film _Quills_ with Geoffrey Rush.
> 
> **Masochism** \- “was where someone 'is controlled by the idea of being completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex; of being treated by this person as by a master, humiliated and abused. This idea is coloured by lustful feeling; the masochist lives in fantasies, in which he creates situations of this kind and often attempts to realise them'.” Masochism refers to _Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, (1836-1895)_ a 19th century novelist of _Venus in Furs_. (This was a semi-autobiography describing the Mistress – slave relationship. The woman is the mistress, the man her sex slave – often allowing her to beat him and handcuff him, etc.) It was published in 1869. His works dealt more with flagellation, being beaten up by cruel lovers than the sexual genitalia acts described by Sade. This seemed to be the trend for pornography in the Victorian age.

Source: “Deviants Dictionary, a project that aims eventually to provide a comprehensive and interactive on-line encyclopaedic dictionary of BDSM-related terms, an 'encyclopervia' of the Net.”

Remember the dates that these two ideas were introduced. Sadism in 18th century – 1785. Masochism in the 19th century – 1880s. Also a little hint on where I’m going with this – when were our two vamps turned??? Angel in 1753 and Spike in 1880.

Freud is the psychologist who decided Sadism and Masochism were more closely linked not two separate anomalies. ' _He who experiences pleasure by causing pain to others is also capable of experiencing pain in sexual relations as pleasure. A sadist is simultaneously a masochist, though either the active or the passive side of the perversion may be more strongly developed in him. '_ (Sigmund Freud 1938, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, translated and edited by A A Brill, New York: Modern Library)

Havelock Ellis, another psychologist, in 1940s, theorized that _'The masochist desires to experience pain, but he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the sadist desires to inflict pain, but in some cases, if not in most, he desires that it should be felt as love'. 'The sadist by no means wishes to exclude the victim's pleasure, and may even regard that pleasure as essential to his own satisfaction' 'Sadism and masochism may be regarded as complementary emotional states; they can not be regarded as opposed states.'_ (Havelock Ellis 1942, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, New York: Random House.)

A sadist can’t exist without the masochist and the masochist cannot exist without the sadist according to Ellis.

In Btvs and Ats – I would argue that the relationships and characters often break down along these lines. One character tends to dominate while another takes a lesser role. This often leads to what Havelock Ellis would call the S&M relationship. In Btvs/Ats this relationship is depicted as unhealthy. It is also largely depicted as unhealthy in most fan-fiction.

BTVS & ATS S&M RELATIONSHIPS & OTHER DARK SEXUAL METAPHORS

Part I: Vampires as the perfect Sadomasochists

Vampires as a group make the perfect metaphor for sadomasochism. The very act of biting a human or getting bit yourself and turned = sadomasochism. It also has that cannibalistic urge behind it – alluded to in the History Channel documentary I saw the other night. But I’m not sure I even have the stomach to analyze that one.

Bram Stoker created the dark twisted vision of the vampire as a metaphor for the repressed sexuality of his fellow Victorians. Stoker did not let his vampire become reflected in a mirror – the view was since the Victorians couldn’t handle the reflection of their dark sexual urges, the vampire, which was the epitome of those urges, should not have a reflection. Stoker’s Dracula was a sensual creation, the definition of evil, he floated into the woman’s bedchamber and seduced her with an erotic bite on the neck. In _Buffy vs. Dracula_ – Dracula floats into Buffy’s room and enthralls her, leaving a “love bite” which she delicately hides from her human boyfriend with a scarf. This is very similar to the behavior of Stoker’s heroine Mina who similarly hides her “love bites” with scarves. In some fan-fic the vampire’s bite is on the thigh or genitalia, but the effect remains the same. In Ats – Angelus bites the gypsy girl Darla gives him on the thigh, and then bites Darla on the neck, a favor she returns as they begin to have sex. (Dear Boy, ATS S1).

1\. BUFFY & ANGEL – Star-crossed lovers? Or Twist on Lolita?

_Lolita_ a book by Vladmir Nabokov, was made into a film by Stanley Kubrick in the 1960s. The book is about a professor who becomes obsessed with his landlady’s daughter, a 14 year old named Lolita. In the movie, he first sees her sitting, with long blond pigtails, sucking a lollipop. In _Becoming Part I of Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ – Angel first sees Buffy who has just turned 15 sitting on the stairs, with long blond pigtails, sucking a lollipop. He falls in love and pursues her all the way to Sunnydale. Determined to help her. Is Lolita’s protagonist sadistic? No. He does however portray an unhealthy desire for teenagers as does Angel.

Unfortunately, helping is not enough for Angel. He also sleeps with the girl – which is the act that robs him of his soul. The metaphor is a tricky one. I sleep with the guy and he turns all evil. The ultimate nightmare. But it’s an extended metaphor – works on multiple levels and they are very clever with it – because the last thing they want to do is alienate all those teenage fans. Yet at the same time isn’t the story also the guy’s ultimate nightmare? The girl you have a crush on – prefers the older hunky college kid, senior, or teacher? You know he’s evil. So why doesn’t she? Why doesn’t she notice you? And they don’t stop there, they turn the knife one more time – Why don’t you see the pretty redhead who adores you but does have a bit of a Crush on the mysterious school librarian?

The Dark Fantasy of lusting after the teenage girl and the teenage girl lusting after the older guy is played out in Buffy/Angel. There’s nothing wrong with this fantasy. How many people have had a crush on someone older than them? David Boreanze was at least 26-27 years of age when he played the role. Yet all these teenage girls were in love with him. He was playing a 245 year old vampire. I remember having a Crush on Shawn Cassidy, Peter O’Toole, Scean Connery and Harrison Ford –with the exception of Shawn Cassidy they were my mother’s age. Buffy had a similar crush on Angel, puppy, school girl , romantic love with dire consequences.

Also let’s not forget - *cough * daddy issues * cough* - Buffy has major unresolved issues with her father. She keeps trying to resolve them by going after older men. Older men that inadvertently hurt her. If you think about it every guy she’s been sexually involved with has been older than her and they all without exception have left or rejected her. A psychologist might argue that she seeks this out, replaying subconsciously her father’s rejection over and over again until she can somehow come to terms with it. Her sexual relationship with Angel while appearing nice and puppyish on the surface is actually rather dark – they can’t consummate their love without him turning evil. When they do consummate it in Surprise, he turns nasty and literally insults her performance and degrades her. For a while in Season 3, they go back to the puppy platonic romance, but this is equally painful and at times sadistic – In Enemies, he pretends to beat her up and brutally kisses Faith to lure Faith into giving herself away. In Prom – he agrees to go to the prom, then turns her down, breaks up with her, then shows up again. When he becomes human and they consummate their love in I Will Always Remember You – Angel takes off the next morning, leaving Buffy alone in bed to fight the big evil alone. Ignoring the fact that she is actually more physically equipped to do it. When he discovers he cannot fight the big evil without being fatally injured, he nobly decides to turn back time, effectively erasing their time together from everyone’s memories but his. Once again “daddy” is making the decision to leave for “Buffy’s” own good, she does not get a voice in the decision. This behavior continues until Buffy and Angel part ways for good – a scene that occurs off stage in Season 6.

As Angelus – Angel plays the role of sadist with Buffy. He tells Dru and Spike in Innocence that he wants some time with the slayer – he doesn’t just want to kill her, he wants to torture her. Emotionally. Mentally. And Physically. Dru hisses that he wants to do to Buffy what he once did to her. In later episodes, we see Angelus attempting to accomplish this task. He stalks her, leaves little gifts for her. Dark gifts. He threatens her friends. Kills her favorite teacher – Jenny Calendar. (Passion) Attempts to kill her friends. Attempts to torture or kill her. Engages in nasty word play contests with her. (IOHEFY, Killed BY Death, Becoming Part I) Captures her mentor, Giles, and tortures him. (Becoming Part II) Spike doesn’t understand this. Why not just kill her? Spike as is made clear in What’s My Line Part II – isn’t really much for the pre-show. Sadism doesn’t appear to be his thing. Dru on the other hand totally gets it – Drusilla prefers to torture things and to receive torture.

2\. ANGELUS & DARLA AND DRU, & SPIKE –The Sadomasochist Family

If any metaphor screams S & M it is the vampire. Think about it for a minute. A sadist gets pleasure from causing pain. A masochist gets pleasure from enduring pain. The vampire gets pleasure from all the things we aren’t supposed to like, the unhealthy, repressed, demon part of our psyche. I remember a friend of mine got into an email discussion about S&M and finally backed off – stating fairly clearly that she sooo did not want to go there. Most (not all) sadomasochistic relationships end badly. These aren’t healthy relationships and can quickly devolve into something real reminiscent of what happened in Reprise in Ats, Seeing Red, or even Crush. As Drusilla states about vampires – Btvs & Ats’s metaphor for sadomasochists or sexual deviants – “we can love quite well just not very wisely.” (Crush Season 5, Btvs).

(Brief aside: The problem with S&M in our society – a problem that Ann Rice hints at in her _Interview with the Vampire_ series – is it is often and inaccurately, identified with homosexuality. Hate to break this to you but Heterosexuals do S&M as often as homosexuals do. Nor are most homosexuals or gay couples into this practice. Unfortunately media has given us a negative impression of S&M and identified it with homosexuality. I recently got into a heated argument with a friend of mine regarding this issue and was unable to convince her that I knew for a fact that homosexuals often had long-lasting healthy relationships that did not involve S&M. Just as there were healthy long-lasting relationships that did involve it. Judging what others do in the privacy of their bedroom is never a good thing. What I admire about Whedon’s exploration of this topic is that he did not give it the cliché homosexual vampire slant. He avoided it. Even though the slash fiction writers go there all the time. Most of the slash writers by the way are woman writing about men, not unlike Ann Rice. Their fiction often details practices that they are unfamiliar with and are nothing more than fantasies. Remember what Nancy Friday said – having a fantasy does not make it real. While Whedon has no trouble exploring S&M’s dark side, he does not do it through homosexual relationships, say what you will about Tara and Willow – their relationship was not sadomasochistic. Unhealthy? Yes. But not in that way. Just as not all S&M is unhealthy, not all unhealthy relationships are S&M.)

Angel was heavy into S&M. We see it first in What’s My Line Part II where Dru gets off on torturing Angel and Angel taunts Spike with their erotic fun. Spike isn’t really into torture, unless of course he’s being the one tortured. Spike isn’t a sadist as much as a masochist from what I’ve seen on the show. Not that it matters. Vampires by their very nature are a little bit of both.

Spike the masochist. I do not know how much research the writers did on the Victorian era, but from what I’ve read – Victorians favorite form of sexual deviance was “masochism”. They were somewhat repressed sexually. The male or neurasthenic male rather – was portrayed as weak in the 19th century. Loving poetry. The Mama’s boy. In the pornography of the era, masochism was in. In fact Masochism takes its name from the 19th century writer -Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

People have argued that Spike is more like the Marquis de Sade. The show provides us a massive amount of evidence showing Spike to be more like Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. In _Smashed_ – Buffy accuses Spike of being in love with her because he is “in love with pain.” “You only love me, because you like to be beaten down. Whose the sick one in this relationship?” She screams this at him between punches. To which he smartly replies: “Hello Vampire! I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side.” In their relationship – Buffy is the Mistress of Pain and Spike the Sex Slave. Earlier in What’s My Line – we’re told that Spike isn’t much into torture but it is Drusilla’s thing. Angel even suggests that this may be the problem Spike has with Drusilla. He can’t keep her satisfied like the sadist Angelus could. We see much later how true this is in Innocence through Becoming Part II. Later in Lover’s Walk – Spike claims Dru left him because he wasn’t evil enough for her. And maybe she’ll take him back if he chains her up and tortures her. People read this as evidence that Spike was a sadistic fiend, well yeah – but he’s talking about Drusilla. Drusilla clearly wasn’t happy with anything less. In What’s My Line – she mentions missing the branding iron Spike had in Prague. In Lie to Me – she misses leeches.

Drusilla is a true sadomasochist. She likes inflicting pain and enduring it. Spike seems less into it for some reason. Something the writers capitalize on in later episodes showing the eventual rift between Spike and Dru. I’m not saying he isn’t sadomasochistic in his own right, he is. Just leans more to the masochistic side than the sadistic.

Angelus is the poster child for sadism. While Spike's in Fool For Love flashbacks suggests fists and fangs, Angelus would prefer artistry, slow torture. In Dear Boy and other ATS flashbacks, we see Angelus slowly torturing Drusilla. When Darla asks when he plans on killing her, Angelus mentions that he’d rather turn her, killing her would just end her torment. In the background we see an insane human Dru struggling to deal with the two vampires in front of her. Later, when Darla brings Angelus the gypsey girl, Angelus and Darla bite each other while having sex – clearly enjoying the pain and pleasure. Finally in Revelations – Giles tells Buffy that Angelus tortured him for hours for his own pleasure, a scene we watched a portion of in Becoming Part II. And in Ats Sleep Tight as well as a few other interesting episodes, Angel states that he can keep someone alive indefinitely with blood transfusions – an eternity of torture. He threatens Lilah with this type of torture in Sleep Tight and with another type of torture in Blood Money.

Darla is also a sadist. She enjoys torturing her victims. In her relationship with Lindsey in ATS – we see an insane now human Darla come onto the human lawyer Lindsey, he’s turned on until she bites him. Even human, part of Darla gets off on inflicting pain. As a vampire she enjoys being on the receiving end. Angelus appears to prefer inflicting pain to enduring it. Both as ensouled and without a soul. We see him get off on torturing Linwood in The Price (Season 3) and enjoy burning Darla and Drusilla (Season 2 Ats). Not that he minds enduring the torture that much. When captured by Holtz in one of the flashbacks, he pretty much states – “torturing me isn’t all that effective, vampire.”

When we see flashbacks of these characters – we are made increasingly aware of their dark sexual activities, their deviant ways. The vampire, Btvs and Ats tells us is a twisted version of the human. Therefore, the vampire will enjoy sex in a deviant twisted manner.

3\. SPIKE & BUFFY: The MISTRESS & SERVANT Relationship

The Spuffy relationship reminds me of the description of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs. When Spike first states that he is in love with Buffy, no one can quite believe it. What does he see in her? All she does is beat him up. Well, duh.

Let’s look at the relationships that work for Spike – Drusilla, she was a tad sadistic, while we seldom saw it we can assume she enjoyed torturing and controlling him, playing dark mummy to her sweet dark knight.

Harmony on the other hand was a problem. Harmony is also a masochist. Two masochists aren’t really conducive to a relationship. It worked for a little while – Spike got to take out his fury towards losing Dru, being dumped, getting a chip, out on Harmony. Then he just got annoyed. There was no love in their interaction. The sadism as Havelock Ellis theorized isn’t really much more than cruelty without love attached. Most sadomasochists don’t get much out of torturing someone who doesn’t enjoy the torture. Spike was just cruel to her, not sadistic so much as plain mean. Saw her as an object. An annoying object. He actually had more affection for the Buffbot than Harmony.

In his relationship with Buffybot, it has been noted that he was practicing being with a human. Possibly. I think he wanted someone who would fight him, beat him down, then have sex. The Buffybot does fight him. Flings him across the room then pounces. Not unlike Buffy does in Smashed.

In interviews, Joss stated he wanted to explore Buffy’s dark side in Season 6. So Buffy was the sadist and Spike was the masochist in most of the scenes. What about the Bronze scene in Dead Things? Was that really sadomasochism? Not sure. It does appear they flipped roles there. Also what about the fact he handcuffs her in Dead Things? Again a flip? Perhaps they played both roles? Havelock Ellis and Freud both comment on how sadism and masochism isn’t easily separated. The people involved may in fact enjoy playing both roles. But from the episodes Smashed through Dead Things, I was under the impression that Buffy was the one in control here. In Normal Again, Spike even confesses that she has “turned him into her sodding sex slave.” In Gone, he barely is able to throw her out and only succeeds in doing so after she’s had her invisible way with him. And in AYW, she uses him for sex, beats him up, humiliates and breaks up with him – telling him that she is only using him. She seems to hold the reins and certainly is the one doing the bashing. It’s not until Seeing Red’s infamous attempted rape scene that we see Spike being violent back.

_Seeing Red_ may be the writer’s attempt to comment on the negative repercussions of an S&M relationship. Or at least one writer’s personal experience of the repercussions of this type of relationship.( If so, it was an extraordinarily brave thing to do and as others have stated possibly a huge miscalculation. BTVS being a horror show – there was no other possible conclusion, he’d either bite her or try to force himself on her once she spurned him.) In Seeing Red – Spike tells Buffy that he wants to make her feel it, like she did before. Their relationship has always been violent. They both get turned on by the violence. Buffy realized this long ago in Bad Girls with Faith. “Come on, don’t tell me you don’t get off on it?” Faith states. Then later in Where the Wild Things Are – the writers make an obvious parallel between Buffy and Riley fighting demons and having sex. Spike alludes to this tendency in Fool For Love and in OMWF – “We’ve always been dancing” in FFL and “You have thoughts you’ll misbehave, Be your willing slave” in OMWF. In fact Buffy herself questions her attraction to their violent sex in Dead Things : “Why do I feel this way? Why do I let Spike do these things to me?” “Why can Spike hurt me?” and “The only time I feel…anything is when I’m with him.” Unfortunately violent sex can lead to unsafe situations. While Buffy admits she can never fully trust Spike enough to love him, she must trust him a little or she would never have entered into an S&M relationship with him. S&M requires an element of trust.

Trust. The difference between healthy and unhealthy S&M relationships is just that trust and consent. If the couple has a group of safe words and does explicitly trust one another – than S&M can be a deviant but fairly healthy sexual practice. If however there is little to trust in the relationship – if it is a love/hate relationship based purely on sex, then S&M is not only unhealthy – it can be quite dangerous. This is the relationship Spike and Buffy are in. Spike trusts Buffy not to stake him, but should he? We are given reasons why he shouldn’t in both Dead Things – her dream sequence and the alley scene, and in AYW where she uses him for sex and does consider letting her ex kill him. Buffy trusts Spike not to hurt her or any of her friends, she believes she can control him and he’s too incompetent to hurt anyone with the chip in place. Should she? She doesn’t really know what he is or isn’t willing to do. In Smashed he tries to kill the girl, yeah he hesitated, but he still did it, the chip was the only thing that stopped him. In AYW he is dealing demon eggs, yeah the episode is poorly written but that was the intent. She realizes in AYW that trusting him is not a good idea. Spike on the other hand never gets the whole trust thing, which is partly why the attempted rape happens. In S&M it is imperative that both parties not only trust one another but understand what trust means and know when “no” means “no”. Because in S&M – there are situations where “no” may actually mean “yes” as well as one’s where it means “no”..

Spike was clearly out of line in SR, I’m sure he’d be the first to admit it, but by entering into a sadomasochistic relationship with a vampire who could hurt her – Buffy was setting herself up for a fall. As Spike states in Smashed: “Hello? Vampire. I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side. What’s your excuse?” It’s a bit like playing with fire – sooner or later, you will be burned. This in a nutshell is the danger of S&M. It could very likely lead to a situation you can’t get out of. Buffy is right when she tells him – “I should have stopped you long ago.” Actually Buff, you shouldn’t have let him in. You initiated things honey. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself who kissed who in OMWF, TR and Smashed. And who unzipped who’s zipper? (Do not misunderstand me I am not in any way condoning Spike’s actions – I’m just saying, get in a cage with a cheetah, even a muzzled one? Don’t be surprised if you get bit. And that in a nutshell is one of the many reasons why I HATE that scene.)

Not all S&M leads in this direction. If you’re dealing with someone who isn’t a demon or caged animal, it may actually not get all that dangerous. Control is very important. But do beware of the dangers involved particularly if the relationship outside of the sex is an unhealthy one and to quote James Marsters : “Can you really think of anything remotely healthy about that relationship for either character that you would wish on your best friend?” (see www.bloodyawfulpoet.com, Shore Leave Transcripts). Outside of the Incredible Sex? Think about it. They didn’t talk. She beat him up most of the time. He made snarky comments that embarrassed her. He couldn’t hang out with her friends. She couldn’t hang out with his. (They tried, Life Serial’s card game and OAFA’s birthday party. He ironically did a better job of it.) They hated what each other stood for and resented having to sink to each other’s level. In Tabula Rasa – he’s running from a loan shark and brings the loan shark down on Buffy and her friends. In Smashed, Buffy beats him up and calls him an evil soulless thing. When he discovers he can hit people he goes off to bite one and is horribly disappointed when he can’t. In Wrecked he smugly tells her that she will crave him. She tells him he’s disgusting and convienent. In Gone she invades his crypt and manhandles him before telling him who she is. In Dead Things, he seduces her on the platform in the Bronze and suggests she can only be happy in the darkness with him. Nothing healthy about it. OTOH of all of Buffy’s relationships – Spike actually seemed to understand her. He accepted her darkness even encouraged it. Quite the reverse of Angel and Riley. Wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been a demon? If he had a soul? Would it have worked? Will never know.

4\. RILEY and THE VAMP TRULLS = Feeling Needed

Riley is a lot like Spike in the sense that he truly is a masochist. In Season 5, part of Riley’s difficulty with Buffy is that once his super-powers are removed he can no longer keep up with her. She can as Spike would put it “bruise him”.

Buffy, worried about hurting Riley, apparently starts pulling back. In their sex scenes at the beginning of Season 5, The Real ME, OOMM, Riley is almost competing with her in bed, seeing who can keep going the longest. Then after the chip is removed, we start seeing her make comments like: “yes that was relaxing” before turning over on her side, away from him. She treats him a bit like a reliable puppy dog. Riley craves passion.

So Riley goes to the vamp trulls. The first of these he meets in Willy’s bar, while nursing a drink. He’s just heard from Dawn how upset and traumatized Angel always made Buffy feel, while Buffy feels comfortable and casual around him (Shadow). Feeling unneeded, he goes to the bar and Sandy, the vampire that VampWillow turns, comes on to him. He lets her bite him right before staking her. His comment – “sorry this will never work, I know you only want me for my body.” But as he later tells Buffy in Into The Woods – at least they want me.

For Riley – the pain is a demonstration of being wanted. He wants to feel something. In Season 5, Riley is depressed, he feels useless, every thing has become meaningless. His friends tell him that he has become nothing more than “true love’s mission”. “You used to have a mission, Riley. Now what are you? The mission’s true love?” (Season 5, Btvs)

Riley is a lot like Buffy in Season 6, craving something but uncertain what it is. Have you ever craved something? You try ice cream, you try television, you try everything, but nothing fulfills your need? That’s what happened to these two people. First with Riley in Season 5 then later with Buffy in Season 6. They both wanted to feel something other than just being numb of being a waste of space. So Riley goes to the vamp trulls. When they bite him, he feels their need, he feels that he has a purpose, that somehow he is sustaining someone. And the pain? It makes him feel alive. Bit like asking someone to pinch you.

The masochist may often need someone to pinch them. They desire pain to feel alive. To feel love. To feel needed. Some masochists can’t experience an orgasm without pain. In Btvs – this type of pain is shown as unhealthy. As Giles states – it is an ambiguous evil, the vamp trulls, and usually harmless, but it can get dangerous if one of the trulls loses control and takes more than they should. Riley is so far gone, he doesn’t care, begging the trull to bite harder. When Buffy finds him – he’s in what appears to be a dope den, surrounded by thin husks of vampires and their patrons. The vampires get off on the blood, the patrons on the sensation their sucking provides them. The perfect S&M metaphor. A consensual relationship with mutual needs met.

When Buffy confronts him on this – he tells her he just wanted to understand what the appeal was, why she preferred Angel, even possibly Dracula to him. She denies this. But he senses what Spike early states – she requires a bit more monster than he can give her. She requires the adrenaline of the danger, the sadist in her man. Oddly enough of the rejections Buffy has suffered – Riley’s is the most similar to her father’s. Riley appears to leave for the same reasons she feels her father left – because she couldn’t satisfy his needs, wasn’t what he wanted, was too “primal” for him.

5\. VAMPWILLOW - The Sadist

While an argument can be made that Angelus, Spike and the other vampires are mostly sadomasochists, VampWillow is pure sadist. The sadist gets off on torturing others.  
Vamp Willow is Willow’s vampire self. In Buffyverse the vampire is a twisted version of the human. The human’s deepest and darkest desires are reflected in the vampire’s persona. Willow clearly has a desire to inflict torture on those who once tortured her. We see this desire occasionally jump to the forefront of her mind. In Earshot, she gets off on her interrogation of Jonathan. And in some of the earlier episodes of Season 6, doped up on magic, she tortures the denizens of the Bronze. (Smashed, ALL THE WAY). What holds Willow back is her conscience, her soul. Guilt. The magic washes the guilt away when she becomes DarkWillow allowing her to torture Warren in Villains, Rack in Two to Go, and Giles in Grave.

Before we ever meet DarkWillow – we meet VampWillow – in The Wish and in Dopplegangerland. In The Wish, VampWillow gets a great deal of enjoyment out of torturing a chained up Angel, flinging burning matches on his chest. Later in Dopplegangerland we watch her break the Mayor’s minions fingers and bite poor Sandy in the Bronze. When she refers to her world – the Alternate Universe of the Wish – she says - “we could ride people like ponies”.

VampWillow does not require the other person to enjoy the torture she dishes out. Actually she seems to prefer it if they don’t. This is a sadistic personality. Very different than the sadomasochist, who gets off when they do enjoy it. In comparison Spike is more of a sadomasochist in Seasons 5 and 6. Not a sadist. VampWillow, however, is a sadist in the truest sense of the word.

Vampires in conclusion have been used effectively by BTVS and ATS to demonstrate the unhealthy aspects of sadomasochism. Of addictive love or self-centered immature love. When two people don’t so much love each other as crave one another. The type of love that is a fire in the blood. S&M often is the unhealthy result of that type of love at least in the troubled world of BTVS.

END OF PART I.


	2. Sadomasochism Metaphors Part II: Werewolves, Witches, Demon Hunters and Slayers<

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since I wrote Part I, I’ve discussed S&M online and offline with actual people who have practiced it and explored a few websites. I discovered sadomasochism is not always about inflicting pain; in fact sadomasochism is more about the politics of control as played out by the submissive and dominant roles of the parties than it is actually about the infliction or enjoyment of pain. While S&M may and often does include the infliction of pain and or violence, it does not have to, many real life participants do not engage in the painful acts, they merely anticipate them and get a kick out the idea of enduring them. Some of it is merely psychological – the idea of mentally coping with pain or exploring intense sensations in a safe environment – of course in a horror fantasy show like Btvs the environment is never safe and pain often is the writer’s means of getting to the truth of the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning– again not for the faint of heart or the overly pedantic. This essay discusses mature topics relating heavily to adult sexual behavior and is not pro-ship in any way.Spoilers to the end of Season 6. - Written in 2002 at the end of Season 6 of Buffy, and S3 of Angel.

Introduction

The Masochist and Sadist Relationship

I discussed sadomasochism with a friend who actually experimented with it and she said S&M is partly about projecting your needs or desires onto the other and asserting control over them through the projection of those desires. The masochist projects her desire to feel pain onto the sadist. “I hate myself – beat me up? I’m dirty, I’m bad, I’m eeevil!” The masochist asserts control over the sadist by forcing the sadist to focus their attention on causing them pain. They in effect become the center of attention or the center of the sadist’s attention/focus. A perfect example of this is how Spike manipulates Buffy and asserts control over Buffy by getting her to hit him. As Spike stated in Lover’s Walk, “Dru didn’t even care enough to chop off my head…or torture me.” As long as Buffy hits him, insults him, throws him across the room, and goes to him for that quick beating – he is important. As Buffy states in Crush, “I beat him up a lot, to Spike that’s like third base.” When she comes to beat him up, when she reacts to his comments with a fist in the nose, he feels like the center of her life. Her drug. No matter what she says, her fists or the rough sex they engage in tell him how she truly feels about him and he loses himself in the pleasure of it. The moment she stops – he loses control, he becomes no longer important. By taking the seemingly “masochistic” role in the relationship, he is in effect keeping the relationship going.

Control is an issue for both parties in the S&M relationship. The dominant party or sadist often controls the relationships by withholding pleasure or pain. In Ann Rice’s erotic retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, the Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the Prince tortures and controls Beauty by inflicting punishment in the form of repeated spankings and withholding pleasure by binding her at night so she cannot pleasure herself nor can anyone else. By doing this he asserts some sort of control over her, meanwhile she asserts control over him by causing him to desire to inflict these punishments upon her. The masochist controls the sadist by being the center of the sadist’s orbit. In order to “get off” sexually – the sadist requires the masochist to torture. The masochist projects his/her desire to be hurt onto the sadist, often encouraging the torture. Likewise the sadist hunts individuals who can stand the torture and are willing to be in the submissive role. This of course is not true in all cases. In some situations, which I hope to examine in this essay, the sadist will torture unwilling parties – justifying his/her actions with the view that the unwilling or willing party as the case may be is not human, just an animal, or in the case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer – evil, demonized.

In Btvs and Ats we have several, I would term “good”, characters who exhibit sadomasochistic tendencies. These tendencies however are not shown so much by the “human” side of their nature as by the demonic. Most of them only exhibit these tendencies with demonic creatures. Buffy does not hurt, slay, or beat to a pulp humans. She does however hurt, slay and beat to a pulp demons. She is after all the Vampire Slayer. She also gets off on it. Willow similarly only tortures those individuals deserving of it. She does not hurt “good” people, well not until she’s been pushed too far. Riley does not beat up on people, only demons, only Spike. OZ is only violent in his werewolf state. As Willow is only sadistic as either VampWillow or DarkWillow. Each of these characters unlike our vampires, has a soul or the moral compass that separates them from demons and animals. They justify their sadistic acts in the same ways that Hitler and other renowned torturers have – the victims were less than human.

1\. Werewolves – OZ, Larry, and Veruca – Sexual Hunger

Robert Eisler, a contemporary of Havelock Ellis and a scholar on werewolves, in his 1940 speech to _the Psychiatric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine_ stated the Greek word for Werewolf formed from the Greek “ _lukhos = 'wolf' and authrpspia = 'humanity'_ , for the dread folklore of men converted into 'werewolves' (Germanic wer, the Latin vir, means 'man', 'male'). The name 'lycanthropy' is used also by alienists to denote a particular form of raving madness manifesting itself in the patient's belief that he is a wolf, with lupine teeth, refusing to eat anything but raw, bloody meat, emitting bestial howls and indulging in unrestrained sexual attacks on any victim he can overpower. Ancient medicine would naturally confuse this form of psychosis with contagious canine rabies, communicable to dogs by the bite of wolves and to man by the bite of a dog, which causes man and dog to snap at and bite everything within reach and thus to spread the dread disease.”(Eisler. Man Into Wolf: an Anthropological Interpretation Of Sadism, Masochism, And Lycanthropy. 1940. For more information on Eisler see: website of the University of London. School of Advanced Study, The Warburg Institute Archive of degrees in doctor of Philosophy.)

Unlike most forms of sadism, the werewolf appears to have little control over his sadistic tendencies. The beast takes over. In some cultures the bestial state was sought after, the Ancient Greeks were rumored in literature to undertake Bacchia like rituals involving wine and drugs to build themselves to a state where they would literally be out of their heads, rending the arms and limbs off of animals. This was their way perhaps of returning to that ancestral memory. By surrendering to the needs of the beast within, they felt a release. The blood-lust was appeased.

a. OZ and Larry: Sexual Identity

When OZ is first introduced he is the cool guy. He seems almost androgynous in some ways. Boyish. Small. Not powerfully built. Quiet in tone. Seldom aggressive except for his pursuit of Willow, which also seems fairly laid back. When a werewolf is discovered wandering around Sunnydale, the SG assumes it’s Larry, a powerfully built obnoxious student who has wolfish manners. In Halloween he not only threatens Xander, he attempts to rape Innocent 18th century Buffy in an alley. (Halloween Season 2, Btvs) In Phases, Larry appears to be hiding something. Xander assumes he’s the werewolf, since Larry’s tendencies are reminiscent of Xander’s behavior in The Pack, when Xander was possessed by a hyena. (The Pack, Season 1 Btvs and Phases Season 2, Btvs)

The werewolf is an interesting metaphor for deviant sexuality– because the werewolf is created through an infection. Many people believe homosexuality or other sexual practices they don’t understand are infections, contagious. Lycanthropy or becoming a werewolf is an the infection that results in a sexual hunger or deviant practice. Vampires may be an even better metaphor since the act of vamping is in of itself a sexual metaphor. Particularly since to become a vampire you must suck the blood of a vampire and die (dying is an act that is often associated with orgasm – the little death – and may happen after oral sex.) To become a werewolf all that is needed is a bite – not unlike contracting rabies, Aids, herpes or a host of other sexually transmitted diseases.

When Xander confronts Larry, believing he’s the werewolf, he discovers that Larry’s not hiding a double-life as werewolf, he’s gay. Homosexuality to Xander is almost worse than the werewolf identity. (Phases, Season 2, Btvs) But Larry becomes a better person once he accepts his homosexuality. His wolfish tendencies recede. He is no longer a sexual predator as portrayed in Halloween or even in the beginning of Phases where he obnoxiously asks OZ how Willow is in bed. After Xander confronts Larry, he is nicer to everyone. Even stoops to help someone pick up their books and as Buffy comments does not take the time to look up her skirt. He becomes the opposite of the wolf. By accepting his sexual desires, he loses his wolf like traits. Becomes less of the beast.

b. OZ, Willow, and Veruca: Devouring the Lover

It’s ironic that OZ becomes a werewolf due to the bite of an innocent little boy. Someone who has no sexual experience infects OZ. (Phases, Season 2 Btvs). When OZ changes into the werewolf – he becomes a danger to everyone around him. He is the complete opposite of himself. No longer contained. Aggressive. Brutal. Cannibalistic. Willow discovers him in Phases with chains. Her reaction is the obvious one – is my boyfriend into something slightly kinky? He attempts to get her to leave, but ends up changing before she does so. She eventually is the one who shoots him with the tranquilizer dart and in subsequent episodes locks him in the cage in the library, reading to him as one might to a child. (Beauty and the Beasts, Season 3 Btvs.) She has regained the power in the relationship. Before Oz was the pursuer but had control – he could see her when he wished and moved the relationship along at his speed. By Season 3, Willow appears to be in more control, locking him in the cage, monitoring the phases of the moon.

In one episode in Season 3, _Dopplegangeland_ , Willow briefly is seen as the monster. Unlike OZ, Willow’s monster is the dominant one – in control. She takes over the Bronze. While OZ in his werewolf persona merely wrecked it. VampWillow actually changes the lives of two humans – turning one, Sandy, into a monster, and frightening Percy into doing his homework. Her clothing and attitude is the epitome of the dominatrix image. So much so that the real Willow makes a joke regarding how OZ and her are engaged in S&M. An image that unsettles her friends. “Did anyone else just go to a weird place?” Xander asks.

Metaphorically their relationship is a tad S&M when OZ becomes the wolf. Willow locks him in the cage and treats him like a pet wild dog. A fantasy that is right out of Little Red Riding Hood – which Angela Carter in her retelling of the tale in Company of Wolves points out was far more sexual in its earliest incarnations. Cannibalism underlies both the werewolf metaphor and the Little Red Riding Hood tale. In Carter’s tale – the wolf is a werewolf. In Btvs – when OZ becomes a wolf he desires to devour the humans he encounters. We see him eat one of the dead boys in The Zeppo.

 _Dolcette_ is an artist who specializes in female fantasies relating to cannibalism. In Dolcette’s art – women volunteer for the love of their man to be slowly cooked alive. There is no force or coercion in this. They volunteer. It reminds me a little of Hansel & Gretal and Little Red Riding Hood. It also makes me think of the werewolf and the idea of sodomy or oral sex. The idea of being devoured by the lover can be traced back to some of our grimmest tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretal, to name a few) and possibly further to creation myths of the Mother Goddess devouring her lovers. In nature, several insects and arachnids devour their mates after or during sex. (Teacher’s Pet, Season 1, Btvs).

Cannibalistic S&M metaphors aren’t limited to Werewolves in Btvs. Intervention – the Buffybot asks Spike to “devour her”. She tells him that she wants to be bitten. Also we have the scene where Angel bites and drinks from Buffy in Graduation Day Part II. (Both characters appear to enjoy this act and Buffy literally sacrifices herself for Angel not unlike Dolcett’s women.) VampWillow treats biting Sandy and possibly Willow as well as a sensual act. Licking their necks with her tongue. (Dopplegangerland). And when Veruca shows up and runs into OZ in her wolf form – they make violent love, biting and scratching and attempting to devour one another. Veruca even comments on how she is closer to OZ than Willow because of the experience, she can appreciate OZ in his wolf form. Willow on the other hand has domesticated him. Placed him in a cage. Veruca suggests that the cage can’t keep him, the wolf is always inside, a part of his nature, perhaps his sexuality as well. (Wild at Heart, season 4 Btvs.) When Veruca goes after Willow, OZ lets loose and does kill her and almost kills Willow as well. The danger inherent in Veruca and OZ’s sexual habit comes to the forefront and OZ takes off.

c. Oz and Willow : Power and Control

What I find interesting about OZ and Willow, is when OZ returns, the wolf apparently contained, Willow has moved on to Tara, a homosexual relationship. Tara is the antithesis of OZ. Submissive. Uncertain of herself. Anti-cool. Stuttering. Not popular. Female. Her energy unlike OZ’s is female. When OZ discovers Willow’s scent on Tara, he loses control – the wolf breaks out and we discover that anger or hostility causes the beast inside OZ to surface. Only a tranquilizer gun can stop him. (New Moon Rising, Season 4 Btvs.) Willow chooses Tara, the female energy, the soft, submissive partner over OZ who she has no control over. Willow has control over Tara. In the previous episode, Tara tells her : “I am you know. Yours.” Tara unlike Oz has made Willow the center of her universe. OZ has always had other friends and activities outside of Willow – a band, classes, the werewolf. In fact Veruca and OZ first met due to his involvement in his band. Willow feels cool because she is dating a guy in a band. (Wild at Heart, Doomed, Btvs Season 4, Dopplegangerland, Beauty and the Beasts Btvs Season 3) Tara feels cool because she is dating Willow and Willow is a powerful witch like her mother. (Hush, This Year’s Girl, Who Are You, New Moon Rising.) With Tara – Willow has control, she senses that Tara will always come back to her, always stay, not suddenly leave like OZ.

For awhile in the Willow/OZ relationship it appears Willow is in control – it’s clear from his fling with Veruca that Willow truly isn’t. Veruca makes it even more clear when she suggests that Willow has tried to domesticate OZ, but he can’t be domesticated, he is the wolf inside. His dark sexuality cannot be harnessed by Willow, he must be the one to control it. Does OZ get off in being free and violent with Veruca – yes. But by the same token he likes to be reigned in by Willow. He breaks free from this pattern of having someone else control his urges, some outside party cage the beast, by leaving and hunting a way to control himself.

2\. The Witches: Willow and Tara – Submissive and Dominant Roles

Up until Tara, Willow often was placed in the submissive role in her relationships. Giles bossed her around the library, Buffy told her when she could help, and Xander asked her for homework advice (Season 1 – Dopplegangerland Season 3, Btvs). Is it any wonder she went a little nuts in Dopplegangerland? Tired of being everyone’s doormat. Magic was her way out. It gave her a sense of power. A sense of control.

In the Hush commentary on the Season 4 DVD’s, Joss Whedon states how in casting Tara they were hunting someone who would come across as weaker than Willow. Willow had become confident now. So in order to build a romantic relationship they wanted a character that would look up to Willow, would lean on Willow, and be shyer than Willow. Enter Tara. Tara is developed as a stuttering, shy, uncertain, yet incredibly warm character. In comparison to Willow in Seasons 4-5, Tara is uncertain of herself and where she stands with people. The writers explain this attitude of Tara’s with the introduction of the Maclay family, a group of “rednecks” who treat women as “slaves”. They justify their enslavement of the women in their family by stating they are “demons”. Demonizing someone makes it okay. As Spike states, “Oh I see, this whole demon thing was a way to keep your women in line.” (Family, season 5, Btvs.) Up until Family, Tara is concerned about Willow rejecting her, seeing her as a demon. Tara acts in the submissive role.

The submissive role in Btvs is the role of the party who is worried about being left. Spike takes the role in the B/S relationship. He is worried about being left. He will do anything to keep the relationship. In the beginning of Willow and Tara’s relationship, Tara is in the submissive role. She tells Willow continuously that she is hers. She follows Willow around. She does the spells Willow wants to do. She lets Willow decide when to introduce her to the gang or when to reveal their relationship. Tara does not attempt to control the relationship in any way, she does not try to wrest the power away from Willow. Not until Willow forces her hand in Season 6.

The writers use magic as a means of demonstrating the sexual relationship between these two women. Often in the spells – we see Willow falling to the ground while Tara is supporting her. Or they are holding hands to control a rose. The idea of support is present here. Very important in a dominant/submissive or any relationship. One party must support the other when they go into the ether or lose control. To contrast this – look at Buffy’s relationships with our vampires – with Angel – Buffy has no support. She has an orgasmic experience, loses her virginity, he becomes evil. With Spike, she also has limited support, she can’t totally lose herself in him without the fear that he could bite her or destroy her. His constant comments that she should join him in the dark lend credence to this fear as does the attempted rape.

Willow and Tara’s relationship works up to a point, but Willow’s need for control and power causes the relationship to break down. Tara acknowledges this need as far back as Tough Love, but is rendered briefly incapable of doing anything about it. When Willow brings Tara back, Tara is far too traumatized to realize that Willow is becoming more and more attached to the dominant role in their relationship and to some degree has taken full control of it. Tara lost her voice in the relationship the moment Glory sucked her mind and was never quite able to regain it.

By the time we reach Season 6, Tara has fallen into the supportive role. She even supports Willow when she probably shouldn’t – the spell in Bargaining Part I, comes to mind. When pushed by Xander and Anya, Tara admits that the spell to bring Buffy back goes against the forces of nature, but she allows there are special circumstances. Buffy was taken by mystical forces not natural ones. Willow, for her part, barely hears Tara’s misgivings. Tara’s job is to support Willow in all things. When Tara stops supporting Willow, Willow gets angry.

In All The Way, we begin to see the dark edge of Willow. The writers start to show us a little of Willow’s sadism. Now before people get huffy, I’m not saying Willow is a heartless sadist. (Honestly, there are times in which I wonder if I’m analyzing a fictional character or the member of someone’s family.) I’m saying she has sadistic tendencies. We all do. I do. You do. Your next door neighbor does. Most of us just choose not to go there. Every day we make a conscious or unconscious choice not to. Think about it. How many times have you fantasized about torturing that nasty boss or ripping a fingernail down the arm of that girl who tormented you in school? Willow was horribly teased in school. Treated like a loser. Inside she feels like a loser. Some sadists (not all) can display a tendency towards self-hatred. When they hurt something – they are often projecting their pain on to someone else. In Willow’s case – she is attempting to control others views.

The first sign we see of this – is in the Bronze where she attempts to find Dawn by shifting people into Alternate Realities. Horrified Tara attempts to stop her and Willow in order to more affectively argue with Tara magically lowers the volume, interfering with everyone’s reality to suit her own purposes, which horrifies Tara more.

Realizing she can’t appease her lover or receive comfort sex, and possibly just a little afraid Tara will leave her, Willow erases Tara’s memories of the events. Is this a sadistic act? Not really. Willow isn’t interested in harming Tara. Harming or causing pain is not her intent. (See Tabula Rasa) She intends on controlling Tara. Their relationship appears to be more D&S than S&M– dominant and submissive and largely unconscious. And these roles do not stay stagnant, they shift back and forth. One party being dominant, the other submissive and vice versa.

When Tara discovers that Willow is using magic to literally control her mind, she leaves. By leaving she regains control of her life and the relationship. She becomes the dominant party. Willow is at her mercy. It is telling that Willow does not use magic to get Tara back. No love spells are cast. (Tabula Rasa, Season 6, Btvs.). Willow does however take out her grief briefly on others. She goes to the Bronze and meddles with people’s reality again. Reminiscent of her behavior in Something Blue, where she attempts a spell to diffuse her pain and instead will’s chaos on her friends, disrupting their realities. (SB, Season 4 Btvs) Her acts in the Bronze with Amy may seem amusing on the surface but in reality are quite sadistic. And are in response to threatened male violence. Actually most of Willow’s acts seem to result from male violence. In Smashed, she magically places two men in cages after they insult her and attempt to manhandle Amy. In Wrecked she conjures a demon after being magically molested by Rack. Willow’s sadistic use of magic is usually a direct result of abuse she has suffered at someone else’s hands. (Wrecked and Smashed, Season 6, Btvs).

The events of Wrecked, Smashed, and to a degree Tough Love (where Willow tortures a hell-god to avenge a violation on her lover) foreshadow the depths of Willow’s sadistic capabilities. Magic appears to allow her to do these things. Without magic, I seriously doubt Willow would have been able to wreck the havoc she does in Season 6. Magic provides her with the power necessary to inflict her own pain on others. Her own low self-esteem is reflected by the pain she inflicts. For the first time, her friends get a peek at who Willow thinks she is. A loser. A nerd. Not worthy. An ordinary boring no-account girl. (Wrecked, Villians, Two-to-Go and Grave). Willow’s actions remind me a great deal of Faith who also tended to react in a self-destructive manner because of self-hatred. (more on Faith in section 5.)

Perhaps Willow’s most sadistic act was torturing Warren. Her rape of Warren with a bullet, sealing his lips shut, then ripping off of his skin and final combustion was grisly and caused numerous debates on the internet. (Villains, Season 6). This scene disturbed me, because to be honest? I wanted Warren ripped asunder. I hated him with a passion. His blasé manner towards women, his idiotic escapades, everything about him made me ill. He scared me because I’ve met him. I know him. And believe me if you meet him on the street? Run. Warren populates films like Neil LaBute’s classic _In The Company of Men_ (where two men plot to bed, seduce, romance and brutally dump a handicapped woman.) Warren is the serial killer Ted Bundy. The kids at Columbine. He is real. So what is most disturbing about Willow’s sadistic torture of Warren, was part of me enjoyed it, although I could have done without the skin ripping scene. As I said, we all have a little sadist inside us.

Admitting our own sadistic tendencies is hard. I honestly don’t think Willow knew she was capable of these things. That’s what distinguishes her from Buffy. As Buffy states in Villains – Willow doesn’t understand these forces, she doesn’t understand that you can’t do these things. Buffy also says something else, which made me pause, and rewind, several times – it’s a quick throw-away line – “killing someone, it changes you, believe me, I know.” Buffy knows that she is capable of these things. It’s why she adheres to certain strict moral codes. Buffy chooses not to go there. She chooses not to kill or torture for pleasure and it is always a struggle. (See section 5 for more on this.)

Willow doesn’t know what she’s capable of, she blames the magic, she blames others. Willow is so busy hiding, so busy protecting herself from rejection and pain, that she can’t see herself. And remember what she says in Choices before she loses control of a spinning pencil (Season 3 Btvs)? It’s important to have emotional control when dealing with magic. How can you handle the powerful forces of magic when you have no idea what you yourself are capable of? When you haven’t acknowledged your own darkness? We think she has in Dopplegangerland, but has she? Really? It takes several months before she realizes she’s gay. No, I think Willow like most of us is terribly afraid to look into that dark mirror and see her dark self. To realize her own sadistic tendencies. Tendencies that scared Tara way back in Tough Love. Tendencies that probably scare Willow now.

I think part of the reason Willow was able to go as far as she did with Warren was that she decided he was less than human. His violence towards Tara and Katrina and Buffy dehumanized him in Willow’s eyes. He became her own personal demon. What’s interesting is if he was a demon – Buffy would have killed him. If it had been Spike who shot Tara and Buffy – he would have been dust. But because Warren is human, has a soul, he can’t be hurt, or beaten, or destroyed. So this raises another question – is it okay to torture things that aren’t human? Are the demons truly worse than the Warren’s of the world? I guess it depends on your point of view or whether you’re on Btvs or Ats.

3\. The Demon-Hunters: Riley & The Initiative – Torturing Demons

Did you know in 17th century, “scientists and philosophers administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference and made fun of (people) who believed the creatures felt pain and therefore pitied them. They insisted that the animals were like clocks; that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noises of some little spring that had been triggered by the blow, but that the animal itself has absolutely no feeling” (p. 149 from _Jean de la Fontaine’s journalistic account of experiments_.)

Think about this: How many torturers in our history have justified their actions by stating that the object of the torture either deserved it or was “less-than” human? In Nazi Germany, the Nazi regimen believed Jews, Homosexuals, and Gypsies were not human. They were animals. This was the propaganda at the time. If they were animals, mere machines, their bodies just a “commodity” then it was okay for the Nazis to do whatever they wished.

Riley isn’t so much involved in the torturing of these creatures as he is in their capture and imprisonment. He knows that the torture and experiments take place, but does not question them overly much, since he believes they are justified. He is not all that different than a solider who has been ordered to take out an opponent’s military base and kill all the occupants. The Initiative and Maggie Walsh on the other hand – are willfully torturing these creatures with the goal of creating their own army of supersoliders. They justify their acts with the view that these are just animals, sub-terrestials that deserve to die.

The Initiative’s sadistic practices on Spike and the other creatures remind me a little of the recent sodomy and rape of Abner Louima, the prisoner in NYC by three cops. In this still unsettled case (it’s been going on for three years now), the cops took the prisoner into a bathroom and sodomized him brutally. They felt justified in their actions because in their heads, the prisoner wasn’t human, he was an animal. This can happen in jails, prisons and in our justice system, when someone commits a horrible crime, we handle it by demonizing them. The horrible crimes of Peter Stubbe in 1591 Germany were attributed to a werewolf. People could not attribute these things to a man. Same with Charles Manson. If we can demonize the criminal, we can torture him, kill him, destroy him and not feel any remorse.

In Riley’s case – he has no problem punishing, torturing or killing the demons. As he tells Buffy in New Moon Rising – there’s no difference, all demons are bad. So we kill them. Buffy of course knows there are graduations of evil and not all evil is worthy of the death penalty. She also realizes that going down that road makes her no better than the demons she fights. Professor Walsh doesn’t see this, but then Prof Walsh takes the mad scientist view that if it’s in the name of science and discovery, it’s okay and she certainly doesn’t stop with demons.

Therein lies the danger. If we treat animals this way – how long until we start to treat humans in the same manner? Justifying our actions based on the stature of the person we are torturing? In our collective history we have justified torturing slaves, prisoners of war, and deformed individuals based on the fact that they looked different or appeared different from us. (Holocaust, Slavery in US and elsewhere are just a few examples.) Professor Walsh demonstrates how this may occur in her experiments on Riley and the other soliders of the Initiative without their knowledge. She justifies her actions on the view that a) their bodies belong to her, their bodies are commodities and b) she is improving them physically. Improving on nature by experimentation – a common scientific justification.

It’s not until OZ is captured and Riley realizes that he is more than just a beast, just an animal, that Riley sacrifices everything to save OZ and goes AWOL. For Riley the last straw is not the fact that the Initiative drugged him or the fact that they are experimenting and torturing demons – the last straw is when he discovers that one of those demons is actually an infected human. Not a complete monster. And someone he is acquainted with. Up until that realization – Riley just wants to kill him, doesn’t even see the point in playing around with him. When he realizes it, he changes his tune and breaks with everything he knows. (New Moon Rising, Season 4, Btvs).

I guess this is why As You Were (Season 6, Btvs) and Into the Woods (Season 5, Btvs where Riley goes off to join the military again, leaving Buffy with an ultimatium) bothered me so much. Riley had left the military behind, had begun to follow a new path. Granted this appeared to be Buffy’s path, but as Buffy states in This Year’s Girl – he doesn’t have to be a solider, he can leave the military, be a demon fighter, hunt his own path just as she did when she fired the Watcher’s Council the year before. Take the initiative and become his own man. So Riley leaves the military, the Initiative and for a while is no longer just following orders. But clearly that doesn’t work for him – he needs some one to give him a mission, rules and boundaries. (Into the Woods). And by the time he returns in As You Were? Riley is right back where he started. Fighting demons with someone else issuing the orders, the guidelines. In AYW he appears the same way he did in The I in Team, Doomed, Goodbye Iowa, and Hush. A self-righteous solider, towing the company line. Are his actions sadistic? Not really. Does he enjoy killing those demons? I believe so. Actually I got the feeling the Sam and Riley didn’t just enjoy tracking and killing those demons, they loved it. What better way to get rid of those aggressions? Than to tear apart some demons. And hey you’re justified since after all they killed half a village. Exterminating them is a necessity, particularly if other governments are using them as weapons. (We don’t know if the US in the Buffyverse is or not, but if we use the Initiative as an example of what the Buffyverse government is capable of? Well I wouldn’t put it past them.)  



	3. shadowkat | S&M Metaphors in BTVS & ATS Part III - Slayers and Vampire Hunters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is part III - features Justine and Holtz, as well as Buffy and Faith in the analysis.

4\. The Vampire Hunters : Justine & Holtz – Pleasure in Punishment

Also unlike Buffy and Angel, Justine and Holtz don’t just dust their vampire prey – they torture them. They live by the doctrine mentioned by Kurtz in the film _Apocalypse Now_ , the only way to destroy the enemy is to become like them. Something Buffy and Angel try very hard to avoid. And J/T appear to get a sadistic enjoyment out of doing it. Their capture and torture of the vampires for training purposes is very different from the Initiative and Maggie Walsh. While the Initiative is sterile, scientific, devoid of feeling, Holtz and Justine’s chamber is dirty, raw, and their acts are filled with passion. They come across as dark versions of the demon hunters: Sam & Riley or the Champions: Cordy and Angel, or the Slayer and her Watcher: Buffy & Giles. And of all the characters, I’ve analyzed their relationship seems to be the most clearly based in S&M metaphor.

In Marquis De Sade’s novella _Justine_ – a woman seeks out pain and torture partly due to her own horrible feelings about herself. She wishes to be punished – so finds someone willing to do it and half falls in love with him in the process.

Justin in Atvs Season 3, may or may not be patterned after Sade’s heroine, but she certainly pursues a similar behavior pattern. When Holtz first discovers her, she is angry and wants nothing to do with him. Apparently vampires killed her twin sister, Julia and Justine has fallen into a spiral of pain and misery. She spends her nights dusting vamps in cemeteries. Holtz offers her a way out – train and become a vampire hunter. (DAD, Ats Season 3) (Juliette by the way was the name of the companion piece to Sade’s Justine. Juliette is Justine’s sister and gets off on torturing people. So maybe this isn’t such a coincidence after all.)

Justine and Holtz’s training montage is reminiscent of Buffy’s montage with her first Watcher in LA shown in flashbacks in Becoming Part I (Btvs. Season 2). Except Holtz is far crueler and tougher on Justine. In one disturbing scene he uses an ice pick (awl) to nail her hand to a table.

> Holtz: "We are here to determine whether or not - you - have the commitment necessary for the work at hand."  
>  Justine: "At hand? -That's a joke, right?"  
>  Holtz: "Why are you wasting my time?"  
>  Justine: "What do you want from me?"  
>  Holtz: "I just told you: commitment. Something you must now convince me you have."  
>  The camera pans down from Justine looking up at Holtz to reveal that her left hand is pinned to the desk with an awl. (Provider, Ats. Season 3)

In the above scene Holtz has punished Justine for dusting two vampires instead of walking away as he ordered. Holtz’s initial purpose appears to be to hone her into a vengeance machine. By the time he accomplishes this, he has become a father figure to her. But at this early stage, when he pulls the ice pick out of her hand, she slugs him. So the relationship is certainly not just one way or the other. Both parties are fairly abusive to each other. He hits her, she kicks him. Their battles become interesting exercises in foreplay.

Holtz is an interesting villain – the puritanical demon killer. Moralistic. Commanding. Religious. Dressed in puritanical clothes when we first see him in flashbacks, he comes across as an avenging angel of death that is a perpetual thorn in the sides of Angelus and Darla. A puritan preacher that brings to mind pictures of Cotton Mather or Bram Stoker’s Van Helsin. If Van Helsin’s obsession was Dracula, Holtz’s obsession is Angelus. And like Van Helsin – Holtz uses a girl to get his pray. Justine becomes both Holtz’s surrogate daughter and to some degree lover. While it is never clear whether they’ve engaged in sexual relations – there does appear to be some sort of sexual pleasure derived from their S&M games. First the ice pick in the hand. Later we see them fighting. Practicing maneuvers as Holtz would call it. Compare this to the calm, relatively restrained martial arts training of Cordelia and Angel in his basement. Justine and Holtz are torturing vampires they’ve captured, training others like themselves in battling them while Angel Investigations just dusts them. The vampires remain alive and chained until Holtz literally disappears in a hell dimension and only then does Justine dust them in revenge for Holtz’s abandonment. (Loyalty – Forgiving, Ats Season 3).

When Fred, one of Angel’s friends, meets Justine and confronts her about Holtz, she says perhaps Justine lost more than a father in Holtz. (Forgiving.) Prior to Holtz’s departure, we see several displays of increased affection between Holtz and Justine, all somewhat twisted. First is when he slams into her by accident while they are torturing their vampires and training members of their team. (Loyalty.) The second is when he catches her talking to Wesely on the sly and we realize that he sent her there. He even stalks behind her, whispering seductively in her ear about how much he trusts her. The final one – is when we learn he plans on taking Angel’s son and raising it with Justine. He and Justine will be the kid’s parents. He has set Justine up as both his surrogate son’s mother and sister. (Sleep Tight.)

Justine becomes incredibly attached to Holtz all through this. But not once is he kind to her. Instead he continuously commands her to do his bidding. Often threatening her with violence or torture if she does not comply, perhaps even rewarding her with it? The ice pick through the hand, the slap across the face, the knife held to the throat. These two are bound together in hate – not towards each other – towards the vampires who destroyed their lives.

So why is Justine putting up with Holtz’s torture?

> Holtz: "So I've explained why I'm doing this. Why are you?"  
>  Justine: "Let's just say, feeling something - is better than feeling nothing."

Reminds me a little of Buffy and Spike in Season 6, Btvs. Actually Justine strikes me as a dark version of Buffy, a dark much older version, since the actress appears to be in her thirties and far more ravaged by life. Like Buffy, Justine would just like to feel. When her sister died, her life lost all its meaning, became empty. Her sister was a part of her soul, a part of her being, possibly the brighter part. Buffy also has this deep connection with her sister. If Dawn had died instead of Buffy, would Buffy have become like Justine? More embittered towards life instead of merely depressed by it? While the sadomasochism in the Spike/Buffy relationship is subtly alluded to, it was pretty obvious in the Justine/Holtz relationship.

Holtz and Justine fight throughout their scenes with each other. Either with fists, words or mere looks. Yet by _Sleep Tight_ their affection for one another is so apparent, that the viewer can sense Justine’s pain as Holtz’s disappears through the portal to the hell dimension. It is Justine that Holtz trusts to carry out his revenge plot and she does him proud. She becomes a female version of Holtz. By the end of Season 3, Ats, _Benediction_ , Justine has inherited her surrogate father/lover’s role. She is Holtz.

As Holtz states in _Dad_ – his purpose is to change Justine into himself, an instrument for vengeance. “Your life has been ruined. You can't sleep. Instead you wander the streets, making others pay for what happened to your sister. That's where I can help. I see your talent. And I see your hate. And I know that I can shape and hone you into an instrument of vengeance." (DAD, Ats Season 3) Justine somewhat sardonically suggests that this sounds like fun, Holtz insists it won’t be. But it actually is, in a way. They both get off on it. The passion and the pain that they inflict on each other, the others they locate to initiate into their group and the pain they inflict on Angel. It is after all better to feel something, even if it is hate, than nothing at all.

In _Benediction_ , Holtz requests that Justine kill him in the manner Angelus would. Using his old ice pick to make the fang marks. Justine reluctantly sticks the ice pick into Holtz’s neck, forming two holes or bite marks, killing him as a vampire would. It is the same ice pick that Holtz used to nail Justine’s hand to the table. The ice pick seems to connect them in their dance of pain and pleasure and revenge. It is the symbol of Justine’s commitment and Holtz’s willingness to do whatever it takes. Justine resists this at first, but an incredibly aged Holtz prods her, insisting she carry out his last wish. When she does do it, it’s almost as if she is kissing him as each prod goes in and Justine has tears in her eyes as she does it.

> Justine slams Holtz up against the side wall of the motel: "Don't make me do it. I can't."Holtz has his hand wrapped around Justine's right hand and the awl she is holding up between them. Holtz: "We already know you can. You promised. You said you'd do anything for me. Come on, Justine. I'm not asking you to follow me into hell. Just help send me there. (Shakes her) Do it!" Crying, Justine, her hand still covered by Holtz', stabs him in the side of the neck with the awl. (Holtz slides down the wall, still holding on to Justine)  
>  Holtz to Justine: "Again. Again!" Crying, Justine stabs Holtz neck a second time just below the first puncture. Connor runs through a metal gate and stops as he sees Justine, running her hand over Holtz' head resting in her lap. (Benediction)

Holtz aids Justine in the act. Screaming to do it again. Placing his hand over hers to drive the pike home. And Justine complies reluctantly and in tears. The act is made to look like a vampire’s kiss and in a way it is - caused by both their hands on the weapon and taking them both to hell. Holtz completes Justine’s initiation into his world. Her first act was slicing Wesely’s throat, as Wes had once held a knife to hers (Loyalty and Sleep Tight). But she did not actually kill Wes then. Her second is killing Holtz or rather helping Holtz kill himself. By killing Holtz, Justine has finally crossed the line and become him. The metaphor of the vampire is used in two ways here – first erotically, the idea of being eaten, killed by a bite. Then changed or altered. When Connor finds Holtz he assumes Angelus bit him and burns the body to keep him from being turned. But it’s not Holtz who is turned by this act, it is Justine who encourages and persuades Connor to destroy Angel by setting it up to look like Angel killed Holtz, then helping Connor destroy the body. Justine through the ice pick has now become the instrument of violence, of vengeance that Holtz desired. She metaphorically becomes both Holtz and the monster Holtz wants to destroy, Angelus.

The vampire bite is often seen as a phallic symbol, so it is interesting that Holtz forces Justine’s hand with his own. He can’t quite do it himself so he has her do it. But since she is reluctant, he must guide her hand. She is in a sense his puppet, his slave, willing to do whatever he asks. Even if it means killing him. As she does so, he slides down the wall into her embrace. She holds his head in her lap and strokes his hair until his surrogate son Connor discovers them. Penetrated and dead by the hand of a lover yet set up to look like it was done by the teeth of the vampire he hates.

Holtz enables Justine to feel again – she is no longer empty in his presence. His touch inflames her. Justine in return provides Holtz with the ability to enact his final act of vengeance and to finally rest in peace after hundreds of years pursuing this goal.

It is ironic that each of Holtz and Justine’s acts of sadism are first conducted by the very monster they are hunting: Angelus. Angelus has tortured his victims with needles and ice picks. Holtz tortures Justin in this manner. Angelus has chained victims for his own pleasure using blood transfusions to keep them alive. Justine and Holtz torture the vampires like this. And finally Angelus bites and drinks from a victim in an alley. Holtz forces Justine to recreate such a scene in an alley. Do they realize that their sadistic dance of vengeance has turned them into human versions of the very monsters they despise? Except instead of directing their sadism outwards it appears in most if not all cases to be directed towards each other.

5\. The Slayers: Faith and Buffy – Power & Control

When you watch Buffy and Faith fight, it is like watching mirror images or a fissure of self: Faith is Buffy’s darkness, including all that entails – the uninhibited sexual desires, insecure daddy issues, fears of abandonment, enjoyment of slaying, uses of violence to deal with life. Both girls are similarly built and of similar size and age. One just happens to be dark haired and one blond.

Through Faith we see for the first time the dark side of the slayer, the primal, animal within the girl. From the information on BTVS and Ats (have not read Fray or any Buffy novels so I’m not referencing those), slayers were created to kill vampires and other demons. The First Slayer in both Buffy’s dream (Restless) and in Intervention – seems to tell Buffy two things: It’s about the slay, always about the slay, the kill. That’s all that is important. But at the same time, Love, Forgive, Give, Risk the Pain – it takes you to your gift, which is Death. In Slayer speak = death equals love, equals peace, release. We can also have sexual deaths – the orgasmic release or little death. S&M is about releasing the endorphins that are generated both by pleasure and pain, the sources for which can be stimulated in similar areas on the body. The line between the two possibly narrower than one would expect. If you can control someone’s pleasure as well as their pain, if you can provide them with that release – do you control them? Faith may believe so.

a. Slaying Vampires – Getting off on the job

Season 3, Btvs delved into the dark underbelly of sexuality with Faith. Faith was the bad girl. To Faith – life was take, want, have. Sex was violent. Men were beasts. And love was a fairy tale. You don’t make love in Faith’s world, you have sex. Primal, animalistic, wild sex. Faith got off on killing the demons and accused Buffy of feeling the same way. Some of Faith’s dialogue reminds me a bit of Spike in Seasons 5-6.

Examples:  


>   
>  Bad Girls: Faith: Oh, like you don't dig it.  
>  Buffy: (shrugs) I don't.  
>  Faith: You're a liar. I've *seen* you. Tell me staking a vamp doesn't  
>  get you a little bit juiced. Come on, say it.  
> 

>   
>  Fool for Love:  
>  Buffy: You got off on it. Killing those slayers.  
>  Spike: Like you don’t? How many of us have you killed?

Where Buffy is afraid to go, Faith jumps with both feet. It’s not until Season 6, that we really start to see Buffy delve into this part of herself and the results weren’t pretty, but Buffy never went as far as Faith. She never let herself get off on slaying. As she tells Xander and Dawn in Villains – “Being the slayer doesn’t give me a license to kill.” And she’s always been a little ashamed of herself when she does get off on it. Faith however relishes in it. Faith loves being the slayer, the Chosen One. She loves staking vamps. She gets an orgasmic thrill from it.

> Faith: Tell me that if you don't get in a good slaying, after a while, you just start itching for some vamp to show up so you can give him a good (grunts and punches)!  
>  Buffy: Again with the grunting. You realize I'm not comfortable with this.  
>  Faith: Hey, slaying's what we were built for. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong. (BAD GIRLS, Season 3, Btvs)

When we first meet Faith, in Faith, Hope and Tricks – she has lured a vampire out to an alley. Buffy has followed her convinced that the vampire lured Faith. Turns out Faith is the predator in this scenario, doing something which never occurred to Buffy. Letting a vamp come on to her – so she can stake him. She even flirts a bit before doing it. Later when she tells the gang about her exploits, she enthralls them with a story of her killing a demon naked. The description is so sexual and violent that Xander is visibly turned on.

In the same episode, we see Faith beating up a vampire instead of just dusting it. Her act horrifies Buffy, who pushes her aside and kills the vamp for Faith. The act is partly Faith projecting her fear and pain onto the vamp and it is partly the release. It is an act she repeats later in Enemies,( when she kills the informant), Bad Girls –( when she accidentally kills the Mayor’s assistant, jumping over the line slayers must never cross), and numerous other episodes where she hunts and kills demons. To Faith part of the fun is the kill, the fight, the battle. And up until she takes human life, she is justified in it. No one questions her actions. No one considers her insane or wrong. She’s taking pleasure in it, but who cares, they are vampires. Then when she takes the Mayor’s deputy’s life – people start getting concerned. That concern continues when they realize she killed the demon informant and finally the human professor. But would Faith have been considered out of line if the Mayor’s Deputy had been a demon?

We have somewhat the same reaction to Buffy’s beating of Spike in Seasons 4-6. Poor Spike is literally beaten up by everyone. Most of Season 4, she seems to punch him in the nose or someone does. In Season 5, Riley shoves a pretend stake in his chest and Buffy beats him up for her jollies. If he shows up in the wrong place, argues with her, is pissy, she punches him in the nose. The audience cheers. He is eeevil! And the writers justify it in the DVD Commentary of Primeval – it’s okay to abuse Spike and we can enjoy torturing him because at his core? He’s inherently evil. Apparently it’s okay to enjoy torturing the bad guy. Is Buffy and SG’s actions regarding Spike really all that different than Faith’s? Any more justifiable?

b. Faith, Xander, Riley and Boys – Slaying the male

When Faith decides to have sex with Xander in The Zeppo, she has been fighting a few demons, but she hasn’t killed them. She hasn’t been able to get in her “slay”. For Faith, slaying allows her to take control. She is the one with the power. So when she loses, she feels empty, unfilled. When Xander saves her in The Zeppo, she has rough sex with him. Strips him of his clothes, jumps on top of him, and literally screws him. It’s not romantic. It’s not nice. And when she’s done, she throws him out the door half-naked like a discarded toy. He might have saved her with his car, but she took back the control, she seduced, screwed, and took his virginity. She slayed him.

Xander is fairly submissive in this relationship. Struggling for his own identity he has for some time engaged in a bit of hero-worship regarding Buffy. He lusts after the strong female. The woman who can slay him, throw him down. It’s not until Hells Bells that we begin to understand why. Xander’s mother and father are the reverse of him and Faith. The Father is the Dominant party and the mother is the Submissive, to the point in which you almost want to slap her. And Xander is terrified of becoming his father. So he picks the strong women, women who can browbeat him, who can slay him. For Xander being slayed by Faith was a wonderful experience, a connection. For Faith it was nothing more than a quick role in the hay.

Faith considers men to be beasts, as she tells Buffy in Beauty and The Beasts (Season 3, Btvs). The ones she dated were losers, they treated her horribly. Her watcher apparently was a woman who was killed by a horrible male vampire, so old it had cloven feet and whom Faith was on the run from. (Faith, Hope and Trick). Faith doesn’t trust men. To Faith men serve two roles – authority figure or something to be slayed. The writers don’t give us much on Faith’s background, so we can only guess. But it does appear Faith has serious “daddy issues”. She also has serious issues with men.

The attempted rape scene between Xander and Faith in Consequences is interesting. It’s part S&M and part rape. At first it appears that Xander is almost willing. He has gone to Faith to help her. He believes that they have a connection. That the sex they had in The Zeppo has elevated him in Faith’s eyes. Buffy tries to tell Xander that Faith places no importance on such things and tosses men aside like toys. But Xander is sure he can reach her. Instead Faith assumes all he wants is sex, like all men, and she thrusts him on the bed and attempts to slay him sexually as she did before, almost killing him in the process. Their sexual scene reminds me of a scene in the book and later movie of the same name Rising Sun by Michael Crichton. In the book, a woman dies in the throes of passion. She is called a gasper. Gasper’s apparently get off sexually by being chocked. They can only have an orgasm on the point of death, when they have been deprived of oxygen – sex and death are closely linked in the Gasper’s head. The person strangling the gasper – gets off in being the one who has the control over life and death - who can deprive the Gasper of life.

> Faith: (excitedly) You wanna feel a connection? It's just skin. (opens his shirt) I see... I want... I take. (kisses him hard) I forget. (She keeps moving above him and rubbing his chest and shoulders.)  
>  Xander: (nervously) No. No, wait. It was more than that.  
>  Faith: I could do anything to you right now, and you want me to. I can make you scream. (She licks her tongue over and around his face and returns to his lips, and kisses him forcefully, seizing his lower lip between her teeth and pulling at it.) (breathlessly) I could make you die.

To Faith sex is a power game. It isn’t about “love”. It’s about power. Buffy sees it as “love”. When Faith asks Buffy if she ever did it with Xander in Bad Girls, Buffy is perplexed and states, “I love Xander but I don’t * love * Xander.” To Faith love doesn’t enter into it. Faith can’t imagine love. When she switches with Buffy, literally becomes Buffy in Who Are You, she still considers sex a game of power. She flirts with Spike, plays with him, lets him know she could screw him if she so desired. But doesn’t because “it is wrong” making it clear that Spike has no choice in the matter. Then she goes off to screw Riley, seeing it as nothing more than revenge sex. I’ll screw Buffy’s boys, Faith thinks. And asks Riley if he wants to hurt her. “You want to punish me,” Faith asks. Have I been bad? Riley looks confused and pushes her sex game aside insisting on making traditional love to her. When they finish, he tells her he loves her. And Faith freaks. “Love? Why? What do you want from her?” Faith as Buffy asks. Faith, the dark side, the slayer side of Buffy is suddenly questioning herself. Is it possible she was wrong? Maybe there is love. Maybe it isn’t just a power game. Unable to handle this she takes off. (Who are You, Season 4, Btvs.)

Faith prefers the game. It’s safer. If it becomes more – things get too close. She can get hurt. She’d rather take the physical than the emotional risk. Just as Buffy in Season 6 prefers the physical to the emotional risk. As slayers they take the physical risk all the time, its second nature to them. The emotional risk, letting someone inside their heart as opposed to just inside their body is far more frightening.

But the S&M games Faith plays with Xander and Buffy later plays with Spike are far from safe. As Angel tells Faith in Consequences:

> Faith: The thing with Xander; I know what it looked like, but we were just playing.  
>  Angel: (evenly) And he forgot the safety word. (gets up) Is that it? (walks over to her)  
>  Faith: Safety words are for wusses.

Uh no, Faith, without safety words you shouldn’t be playing at all. S&M is all about trust and Faith has none. Without trust, S&M doesn’t work. That is the problem Buffy has with Spike and that is Faith’s problem. Season 6 Buffy can’t trust anyone including herself. Even if Spike was ensouled and the nicest guy on the planet – her relationship with him would have been unhealthy, because Buffy was not in a place in which she could open herself emotionally to someone else. Buffy can’t trust. It’s really not as much about Spike as Spike and the audience think it is. It’s really about what’s going on inside Buffy. And no, I’m not saying she should trust Spike, I’m just saying she isn’t open to it right now – any more than she was with Riley. She could show physical love to Riley but could not emotionally open up to him that’s why he left. It’s also why Buffy really shouldn’t be romantically entangled with anyone right now. She isn’t sure who she is and whether she can trust herself let alone another person. Since her mother died, Buffy has felt like she is losing control, over her life, her body, her self and is desperately trying to regain it.

The Slayer is such a physical force of nature. The previous slayers, Nikki, the Boxer Rebellion Slayer, and The First Slayer seemed to have no voice, to be all about the act. The slay. The First Slayer appeared to be pure primal energy not needing friends, watchers, or the outside world. (Restless, Btvs Season 4) Even Kendra seemed to be emotionally detached. Buffy had to push to get her to open up emotionally. (What’s My Line Part II, Btvs Season 2) These slayers were weapons. They were either all about business or all about moves. They had nothing connecting them to the world outside of their status as slayers – hence the death wish. (See FFL) Death was their reward, their release and slaying the sexual act leading up to it. Both Buffy and Faith succumb briefly to this reward. Faith when she is knocked into a coma by Buffy, temporarily released from her duties. And Buffy when she leaps to her death in the Gift. Both deaths could be seen as a sort of sexual release: Buffy’s falling from the phallic tower, Faith’s falling after being stabbed by her surrogate father’s phallic knife.

When Buffy is resurrected, she returns in an emotionally frozen state. Unable to feel. Requiring some sort of violence to stimulate her. Whether that be screwing a vampire or staking one. But I’d argue that Buffy’s frozen state occurred prior to Bargaining, Buffy was somewhat emotionally frozen after Buffy vs. Dracula, when her mom first got sick, her kid sister appeared, and she had to begin to move past adolescence into adulthood. This frozen state is foreshadowed by Faith and her relationship with Xander. Faith can’t trust Xander. She can’t trust the SG. She can’t trust the Watcher Council, who tries to kidnap and kill her three times. (Consequences, Who Are You, and Sanctuary). The closest Faith comes to trusting someone is the Mayor and later Angel in Sanctuary (Ats Season 1). Both are dark men who have some experience with death and torture. They also both treat her with a semblance of compassion and trust. Sometimes trusting someone is all it takes to obtain trust in return.

c. Faith, Buffy, Angel & Wesely – fun with chains

Faith: Finally decided to tie me up, huh? I always knew you weren't really a one-Slayer guy. (Consequences)

After Angel rescues Xander, he chains Faith up in the Crawford Mansion. The chains connote lack of trust on Angel’s part, but appear to have sexual connotations to Faith. Later in Enemies, Faith and Angelus (Angel pretending to be Angelus) chain up Buffy. Faith lays out some implements and suggests the fun she is going to have torturing her counterpart. She gets off on Angel’s beating of Buffy and Angel’s beating of her. Faith prefers Angelus. Vicious and cruel. To the understanding, compassionate Angel. Buffy of course is the opposite. But Faith calls her on it in Enemies, suggesting that perhaps a part of Buffy got off on Angelus’ attraction to her. Just as a part of Buffy gets off on Spike, even lusts after Spike as is suggested first by Faith in Who Are You and later shown in Smashed through Seeing Red in Season 6. Screwing the bad boy can be a heady experience. He’s dangerous. He’s death. Faith loves it when a fanged Angelus kisses her and then tries to kill her. Slaying makes her horny as hell and she’s not afraid to admit it.

But Faith seems to enjoy the chains less than she enjoys chaining up others. First she chains up Buffy and plays with the torture. Discovering Buffy and Angel played her and that Buffy was never truly chained, Buffy and Faith do battle and when the battle ends and Buffy holds a knife to Faith’s throat, Faith says – “you kill me, you become me and you aren’t ready for that yet”, then kisses her on the forehead. Later in Graduation Day Part I – it is Buffy who has the upper hand and does appear to kill or mortally wound Faith and by doing so, in some way, incorporates part of Faith in herself as is demonstrated by the prophetic dream in both their heads. A part that she incorporates even more after Faith literally trades bodies, forcing Buffy to experience life under her darker sister’s skin. The experience is not one Buffy appreciates, but it is one that changes her. (Who are You, Season 4, Btvs.) Afterwards the fragile trust she had with Riley is never fully re-established. She can’t quite deal with the fact that he slept with Faith while Faith had her body. That he couldn’t tell Faith wasn’t Buffy. And we begin to see Buffy close off a part of herself, a part she closes off a tad more after she finds Angel comforting Faith in Sanctuary Ats Season 1. Buffy had intended to save Angel from Faith, instead she is helping Angel save Faith from the Watchers. Angel’s comforting of Faith and Buffy’s inability to accept it – may be the second to last nail in the coffin of their romance. Angel realizes that if Buffy can’t forgive Faith, she may never be able to completely accept or forgive him. Buffy realizes that she can never fully understand or trust Angel, because of what he is capable of, something Faith shares with him and to her knowledge, she doesn’t. “I’m not part of your murders club.”

The next victim of Faith’s is Wesely, her watcher. With Wesely, Faith goes all out. She tortures him partly for her own pleasure and partly to convince Angel to kill her. It’s all about regaining control.(Five by Five Ats 1) She can’t quite get up the nerve to kill herself, Faith has never been a quitter. But she hates herself as she demonstrates in the pummeling of her body while Buffy still occupies it. (Who are You, Btvs 4.) She has lost control over herself, her world, everything. By capturing Wesely – a former teacher and father figure, the male authority figure who failed her so miserably in Season 3 Btvs when he sent the Watcher Council after her (Consequences), Faith feels she is reasserting her power over the Watchers, over the father that left her, over her world. She tortures Wes brutally and enjoys it. Cutting away his skin cuts away the skin of those that asserted control over her. He symbolizes the SG and the Watchers, and everything about slaying that she hates.

Faith’s torture of Wesely is also interesting in how it echoes Angel’s torture of Giles. Both get off on the torture. Both are accused by the Watchers of doing it for their own pleasure. Wes is furious with Angel for helping Faith because she tortured Wes for her own pleasure. (Sanctuary Ats 1) Giles is furious with Buffy for helping Angel because he tortured Giles for his own pleasure. (Revelations. Btvs 3). Both tortures are barely stopped in time by third parties, Spike in Giles’ case and Angel in Wes’. Both acts are purely sadistic. But they are also all about control. Who has it. When you torture someone, part of the pleasure is the power you have in eliciting a reaction, whether that is a scream, a piece of information, or a curse. Making them do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. Molding them to your will. Sadists often do not feel in control in their ordinary life. They are insecure about their own power so they enjoy the illusion of wresting it from their victims.

In Btvs and Ats it’s interesting how many people get tortured. Angel in Blood Money tortures Merle repeatedly for information. Hanging the poor friendly demon upside down and half drowning him. But as Lorne states in Forgiving while Angel is threatening to torture Linwood, torturing demons is acceptable – humans is not. Even if they are nasty humans. Buffy’s torture of the vampire in When She Was Bad with a crucifix is overlooked. After all Buffy had no other choice. And the girl was a demon. To Buffy’s credit – she never appeared to enjoy it, much. Angel does appear to enjoy it. Both when he tortures Merle and when he tortures Linwood. Faith also enjoys it. Why? Because of all the characters – Faith and Angel have the least control. Angel is cursed with a soul. He gets happy? He loses it and all chance at redemption. He is in the ultimate Catch-22 situation. Faith is one of two slayers – and Buffy already has the primo spot and Faith’s made one too many mistakes, she’s on her way to jail or death by Watchers, she has no control. Torturing Wes – gives her a little of that control back – she is able to get Angel mad enough at her to possibly kill her and put an end to her suffering. Angel doesn’t comply, but hey it was worth a try. It also gets a bit of her own back at the almighty Watchers. Faith ironically doesn’t really take control over her life, until she surrenders to the inevitability of it by surrendering to the police, breaking the cycle.

Buffy in Season 6 is also engaged in some sadistic acts. She’s playing control games with Spike. Whipping him back and forth. First she kisses him. Then she pummels him and tells him he can never have her, he’s evil. (Smashed through AYW) Buffy has lost control. The only control she feels she has is when she is pure slayer, which entails killing demons and slaying Spike. She can’t kill Spike of course. But she can screw him in fifteen different ways. She can screw with his head. Screw with his body. Let him screw with hers. In her relationship with Spike, Buffy does what Faith does – she projects her self-hatred on to the vampire. When she tells him he is an evil soulless thing, that he is wrong, she is venting what she fears most about herself. Someone said that fear and shame are the worst emotions – these are the emotions that Buffy is feeling. Shame at being brought back alive, fear that something is wrong with her. But unlike Faith, Buffy never quite crosses that line. She breaks the cycle before it gets too far out of hand and she destroys herself and what she loves.

Buffy breaks off her relationship with Spike in AYW, acknowledging her friend, William, the man, by doing so. Buffy was screwing and torturing the monster with her sex and mind games and in doing so stripping away at the man underneath. The man she is half afraid to acknowledge and isn’t really sure exists. In AYW and Hell’s Bells, it appears she has acknowledged him to some extent. Prior to these episodes, in Buffy’s head, Spike had no feelings – he was an animal. He didn’t know what feelings were. He couldn’t love her. He didn’t have the capacity for that. Any more than he could feel pain in her mind. He was an intelligent pet she could screw. It took Riley and the events of OAFA to make her begin to realize that she was wrong. That Spike did have feelings and what she was doing was destroying them both.

Buffy does the same thing in Normal Again – saves her friends instead of letting them die. She ironically takes control of her life, by surrendering as well. Letting her friends cure her with the antidote. Instead of ignoring or trying to kill them. She acknowledges that they are real, have feelings, can feel pain. That they aren’t figments of her imagination to be tortured at will or are keeping her in Sunnydale to torture her. As a result – Buffy begins to slowly break from her cycle of self-hate.

In Btvs and Ats, the sadists aren’t in control – if anything they are being controlled by their sadism, by their own fears and insecurities. Torturing someone does not give you control over them – that is an illusion. It’s not until you give up control that you actually appear to have it. Willow gains control of her relationship with Tara when she surrenders it. Just as she regains control of herself, when she lets go of her sadistic rage on the hilltop in Grave. Faith regains control of herself by surrendering herself to the authorities. Holtz and Justine have only condemned themselves to their own hells – hells governed by their desire for vengeance and endless cycles of punishment. They have become the enemy they hate.

Finally, S&M only appears to work when both parties are satisfied, when love and trust are involved. When you have safety words. Without these things, you may get devoured like Veruca or almost strangled like Xander.


End file.
